10 of My Favorite Horror (and Horror-Adjacent) Themed Music Videos

Music videos have always been a huge part of my life ever since I was a young kid. I used to race home on weekday afternoons for a music video show that aired every afternoon on Channel 66 in the Chicago burbs, and I remember there even being a music video countdown show on Saturdays on NBC (I didn’t have cable sadly, so MTV was only something I’d get to enjoy at other people’s homes). I truly love music videos in all their forms, but whenever a video feels like it is right at home in the world of horror, I consider that a huge bonus.

Lately, I’ve been winding down my nights with the various VEVO channels on Pluto, and it’s such a fun way to rediscover some of your favorite videos, or even introduce you to ones you may have missed over the years. So, in honor of my continuing obsession with music video storytelling, I chose 10 of my favorite horror-themed (or horror adjacent) videos to spotlight here.

Of course, Michael Jackson’s Thriller will always be the standard bearer, and it’s a huge reason why I became so intrigued by special effects in the first place, but I decided for this list to go with some other killer entries. And my apologies to the other 32 or so videos on my list that I didn’t get to include here, as there are so many great videos out there. Maybe I’ll do this again if all goes well.

Laura Branigan — “Self Control”

Holy shit, do I love Laura Branigan and so did my mom during the 1980s (it’s no exaggeration to say that I’ve probably heard “Gloria” more than 100 times due to my mom), so she immediately picked up Branigan’s third album, Self Control, when it came out in 1984. I think I ended up being more of a fan of that album than my mom was, but I absolutely played the title song over and over again. Which brings us to the music video, directed by none other than William Friedkin.

I remember the video for “Self Control” really creeped me out as a kid (all the masks!), but as an adult, I find it to be a highly intoxicating viewing experience that perfectly captures the vibes of the song (“I live amongst the creatures of the night” — whew). Someone on Bluesky mentioned how this video felt like Friedkin had just discovered Italian horror and used that to influence his directorial approach, and I think that description is so spot on.

Foo Fighters — “Everlong”

Not only is “Everlong” my favorite song from the Foo Fighters, but I would rank it amongst my top five songs ever. It’s just perfect in so many ways, and it’s one of those songs that I will immediately tune out everything and everyone around me, regardless of the circumstances. So, the fact that one of the greatest songs ever has a horror-inspired music video just feels so… well, utterly perfect to/for me.

Directed by the visionary Michael Gondry (Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), the “Everlong” video pays homage to both The Evil Dead and Evil Dead II (groovy), Sid & Nancy, and Top Secret!, and it’s evident that the Foo Fighters were game for anything Gondry wanted to throw at them. Their dedication to just going for broke here is a big reason why the Everlong music video works as well as it does, but Gondry’s wildly unpredictable approach helps too.

Zhu & Nero — “Dreams”

As a fan of Zhu’s work for over a decade (“Faded” is still an essential track in so many of my playlists), I absolutely adore his collaboration with the musical trio Nero for “Dreams” which came out in late summer 2017. A haunting meditation on the human condition, the song “Dreams” was an instant classic amongst electronic music fans. But the video, directed by Elliott Sellers and Erik Ferguson, is on an entirely different level, and even though it may not be traditional horror, there’s something extremely disarming about the existential terrors contained within this video.

A hellish nightmare that feels like it would be right at home in the realm of Cronenbergian storytelling (that applies to both David and Brandon), “Dreams” features countless disembodied limbs and bodies piled on top of each other — a visual representation of how, in the end, we’re all just a heap of flesh left behind on this mortal coil regardless of our status in life. There’s just something so disconcerting about the way Sellers and Ferguson were able to marry the visuals of the “Dreams” video to Zhu and Nero’s unforgettable collaboration that makes it worthy of mentioning here.

Warning: This video is extremely NSFW. Lots and lots of nudity.

MGMT — “Kids”

“He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby become a monster…”

I think there was a fun trend towards the end of the aughts where you had these very light and pop-py sounding songs that actually had more sinister undertones to them than maybe many of us realized at the time (“Pumped Up Kicks” from Foster the People being a prime example). And while the song “Kids” may be this heart-on-its-sleeve pop song that features an instantly recognizable childlike melody, the video itself is pure trauma fuel.

Directed by Ray Tintori, who also directed MGMT's videos for "Time to Pretend" and "Electric Feel," “Kids” follows a toddler who is initially being terrorized by monster hands inside of his crib, and from there, things just get worse for the tot. Even after he’s pulled to safety by his mom (played by Joanna Newsom), he’s constantly surrounded by a variety of bloodied and weird monstrosities, and the toddler looks like he experiences about 10 different mental breakdowns throughout this video (apparently, “Kids” was very controversial and MGMT had to release behind-the-scenes footage just so people knew the kid was okay).

But as if all the monsters weren’t enough, “Kids” also features a bunch of weird puppets, furries, oversized veggies, and an animated acid trip that was conceived by Superjail’s creator Christy Karacas.

David Bowie (with Trent Reznor) — “I’m Afraid of Americans”

If I’m being honest, I probably could have put at least half a dozen classic Nine Inch Nails on this list, but Trent Reznor’s V1 remix of David Bowie’s “I’m Afraid of Americans” has been on my mind a lot lately (wonder why), and I’ve always been a huge fan of this video in general, because who wouldn’t be afraid of Reznor with a soul patch?

While it’s not exactly a horror music video per se, but there are enough stalker/slasher vibes going on in “I’m Afraid of Americans” that make it feel like it is definitely genre-adjacent enough to include here. Directed by dom&nic (frequent collaborators with groups like The Chemical Brothers and Supergrass), the video perfectly captures the paranoia of how other countries and cultures view American society and our penchant for violence. Also, I love the weird death cult that comes through at the end, and Reznor’s Travis Bickle aesthetic encapsulates the late ‘90s obsession with nostalgia so authentically.

Meat Loaf — “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”

“I have traveled across the universe through the years to find her. Sometimes going all the way is just a start…”

I have been a fan of Meat Loaf’s for a very long time, ever since I grew up listening to my mom’s Bat Out of Hell record on repeat (and of course, The Rocky Horror Picture Show was also a big part of my fandom). So, when Bat Out of Hell II: Back into Hell was released in 1993, it felt like the first of Meat’s albums that was made just for me. The first single off that album was Jim Steinman’s incredible power ballad “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That),” and an epic love song like this needed an equally epic music video.

Enter Michael “Freaking” Bay. At the time, Bay’s career had been picking up steam due to his commercial work, which made him a natural fit to take the helm of the highly ambitious video for the “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That).” A mix of Beauty and the Beast and The Phantom of the Opera (two of my personal favorite stories of all time), I fell instantaneously in love with the almost operatic nature of Bay’s storytelling here (plus, involving Texas Chain Saw Massacre’s cinematographer Daniel Pearl was an inspired choice).

Bay would also go on to direct the videos for “Objects in the Rear View Mirror May Appear Closer than They Are” and “Rock and Roll Dreams Come Through,” too.

Billie Eilish — “bury a friend”

Billie Eilish is like so freaking cool, and I absolutely adore her video for “bury a friend.” Directed by Michael Chaves (The Curse of La Llorona, The Nun II), “bury a friend” features Eilish as the proverbial monster under the bed of British rapper Crooks, as she represents the darkest aspects of humanity in general. Throughout the rest of the video, the singer is also manhandled by mobs of hands clad in black rubber, pulling the teenager’s hair and ripping her shirt before injecting her in the back with unmarked syringes (did this help inspire some of the visuals in The Substance? I genuinely now wonder).

Later in the “bury a friend” video, Eilish creeps through flickering hallways and even levitates as she is possessed, before she disappears from underneath the bed. Super fun and creepy stuff that will leave you wondering — when we all fall asleep, where do we go?

Tool — “Sober”

Look, pretty much any video from Tool could probably have a spot on this list, but I decided to go back to the beginning with the video for “Sober” because it’s power is undeniable after more than 30 years, and I’m a sucker for stop-motion animation. Directed by Fred Stuhr and featuring the handiwork of Tool band member Adam Jones who previously worked as as special effects artist at Stan Winston Studio and Rick Lazzarini’s The Character Shop (he helped create “Womb Freddy” for Nightmare 5, some Predator skulls for Predator 2, and the head on a spike that we see in Ghostbusters II).

Jones put all of his experience working in film and television to good use on “Sober,” creating a haunting story of a tiny dude haunted by the mysterious contents of a box that he discovers which has mind-altering effects, tying in directly to the themes of Tool’s song. I don’t even know if I’d call “Sober” Tool’s best music video, but it is the one that I continually go back to when I think about great abstract horror videos that have left a huge impression on me.

Backstreet Boys — “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)”

Okay, I know the Backstreet Boys may be something of a “guilty pleasure” for lack of a better term, but these guys really gave us a killer music video with “Everybody (Backstreet’s Back)” in the summer of 1997. Directed by Joseph Kahn, the video for “Everybody” finds the Backstreet Boys forced to stay at a creepy and questionable mansion for the night after their bus breaks down.

But as it turns out, supernatural forces aren’t enough to thwart a dance party from breaking out, and each of the Backstreet Boys takes on an iconic horror personality over time: we see The Phantom, The Wolfman, Dracula, The Mummy, and Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde are all represented here, which is totally badass. Beyond that, all of the supporting characters in “Everybody” look like they’d be right at home in a Hammer film, and the video features an impressive set design that feels like you’d get the ultimate haunted house experience just by roaming around in its halls.

While no video will ever surpass what we got from Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” “Everybody” certainly is the closest thing we’ve gotten to nailing the horror-centric ambition on display in Jackson’s truly iconic video from the early Eighties.

DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince — “A Nightmare On My Street”

As a big fan of both DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince and the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, it felt like my worlds collided in a major way back in 1988, the very first time I listened to my cassette of He's the DJ, I'm the Rapper. The very first track was entitled “A Nightmare on My Street” and as soon as it started, my 10-year-old jaw hit the floor — holy shit, was The Fresh Prince REALLY rapping about THE Freddy Krueger?!?! It was an amazing moment in my life at that point (I was young, lol), but it made me so happy for so many reasons.

What I didn’t know at the time was just how controversial “A Nightmare on My Street” would end up being, as New Line Cinema got lawyer happy and caused all sorts of problems for both Will Smith and Jeffrey Townes. I can remember seeing the video only once and then it just up and vanished — I had no idea at the time that New Line demanded the video should be “destroyed” and that was just that. What a bummer for director Scott Kalvert (The Basketball Diaries).

So, imagine my surprise a few years ago when I was writing about the song and video for a school paper about the impact of the Nightmare movies on popular culture as a whole, and I found the “recovered” music video for “A Nightmare on My Street” on DJ Jazzy Jeff’s YouTube page. It felt like I was reclaiming a piece of my childhood in that moment. Recently, VEVO played the video on their ‘80s channel and that was a big inspiration behind me wanting to do this piece in the first place.

I gotta say, “I’m your DJ now, Prince-y” has never sounded as sweet as it does now, nearly four decades later.